Where the Night Mares Graze
by Lacci De Vrij
Summary: wrote this a while ago. it's a HOC fanfic. just an idea I mushed together at 2 am. I like blood.


**Quick history for those of you who dont know anything about HOC (Hogwarts: On Crack). Lacci is a happy 6th year slytherin who loves everyone, and she is very light headed. Jupiter is her twin sister, who she loves very much. Threndle is her 4th year gryffindor friend, who is a death eater and everyone knows except lacci. Threndle has already killed two of lacci's friends, and threatened two other ones. Mitsuji is Lacci's boyfriend, who she loves and would die for. Some of these ideas I got from xanth novels, which I havent read since I was a little little kid. On to the story.**  
  
Lacci sat at the end of the bed, staring at her feet. She wasn't used to this. It all seemed so wrong, so...out of place. There was something about her, she could feel it. She just didn't seem to exist on their plane of reality. It was as if she was that top sheet, and everyone else was drawn into the background. A nightmare floated past Lacci, and caught her toe. She began to dream...  
  
_"Lacci? Lacci!! Lacci don't leave, help me!!" Jupiter called after the running figure. "Lacci, come back!! Lacci, wait for me!! I'm stuck, help me!!"  
  
Lacci kept running, and as she turned the corner, she could see her twin. Jupiter was stuck in the crevice Lacci had slipped through so easily. The shadows were creeping closer to her trapped sibling, now showing the occasional gleam of razor sharp teeth or a giant claw. They closed in around Jupiter, slowly, seeming to seep from one shadow to the next and not existing between. Suddenly she let out an ear piercing scream as the shadows, as one, leapt at her. Lacci winced, expecting blood and growling and pain. Instead the Shadows flowed into the crevice, carrying a small beam of light. Jupiter was left lying on the ground, not moving. Lacci ran back to see if she was ok, the scream still ringing in her ears.   
  
Lacci was relieved to see Jupiter moving, when she finally stopped at the body. She reached down and held Jupiter's hand attempting to pick her up. To Lacci's utter horror, the arm came off, and millions of small white maggots fell out of the flesh. It seemed Lacci was not the first to get to her sister. Small holes began to appear in Jupiter's lively skin as the grubs ate their way through the flesh. Lacci screamed. "No!! Stop that!! Get away from her!! Get off!! She's not dead!!" Lacci began crying as she screamed, beating at the maggots. "She isn't dead!!! she isn't!!! Go away, all of you, leave her alone..."_  
  
Lacci's head snapped back to attention, and the exhausted nightmare galloped away. What was that?? The vision of Jupiter's body crawling with maggots crept back into her mind... Lacci pulled her feet up over the edge of the bed, and looked around. The room was a giant black place.   
  
_No, was it? A shimmer of light zoomed up past the bed. Then another one. Lacci stared as more light whizzed by. What was going on? Lacci looked up, and saw a whole sky full of the lights. They... they were stars! More stars went by. Lacci nerved herself to look over the edge of the bed.The stars seemed to be coming from and going no where. But the giant spikes that were slowly rising had a destination in mind.   
  
Wait, were they actually rising? The bed began to rock. Lacci started screaming as she realized the bed was falling towards the spikes. It hadn't been the stars that were moving, nor the spikes, it was the bed!! In a desperate attempt to save herself, Lacci leaped from the bed...._  
  
And snapped her head up again. Another mare could be seen, running into the distance. You really couldn't trust this place, wherever it was. Lacci made a mental note to watch out for any more nightmares. She folded her legs underneath her and looked around. She wondered briefly what would happen if she stepped off the bed. There was soft green grass below her. Looking around, she could see yellow, black, blue, purple and orange grass. The sky was a shiny black color, and completely starless, yet the whole plain glowed in black light. This must be where the nightmares grazed.  
  
Slowly, Lacci pulled her feet over the edge of the bed, and set them in the grass. It was like grass. It was cold and moist, and basically grass. She stood up. There didn't seem to be anything to fear here, as long as she stayed away from the nightmares that were fully fed and carrying full dreams.  
  
After wandering around a bit, Lacci found a bush with mangoes on it. She realized she was hungry, and reached for one. Then she saw a mares eating from the bush. Now that it wasn't moving much, lacci could inspect the mare better. She was a normal sized female horse, completely black, with a slight shimmer to her, and transparent. Lacci felt as though she could fall through the mare, and felt herself being pulled towards it.   
  
_Lacci shut her eyes and stepped back. She turned her gaze back to the mangoes, and picked a ripe one. She pulled it open and bit into it. It was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. She looked back at it, and found that it wasn't a mango at all!! It was Jupiter's moldy fist, and a few maggots fell from it. Lacci screamed, and dropped it.   
  
Lacci started running. The moment her foot hit the ground before her, she fell through. The grass had simply been an illusion. She looked up, and 5 feet above her was the grass. From the underside her could see out perfectly; the grass was translucent from this side.  
  
There was the sound of many scuttling feet behind her. Lacci turned, slowly, and tried to look into the shadows. She was in a small chasm, about 9 feet wide and 20 feet long.   
  
Suddenly something bit into Lacci's heels, and tore a chunk of her flesh off. Lacci looked around and came face to face with a giant beetle with huge laws and six large metallic legs. It was about 2 feet long. Lacci jumped and backed up, and felt another chunk of flesh ripped from the back of her leg. There were 3 more giant insects behind her. Suddenly the scuttling noises grew louder, and more of the bugs appeared.   
  
Lacci looked around. she was trapped. The metallic bugs were closing in on all sides. In panic, she jumped on them and tried to run on top of them. She could feel them piercing the bottoms of her sensitive feet and her legs. Then she fell. They began crawling over her, swarming in. She could feel their sharp metal feet digging into her back, and their jaws cutting flesh away in neat, quarter sized chunks.  
  
Lacci started screaming and tried to stand. Each beetle weighed about 100 pounds. Lacci threw them off and ran straight into (and through) a wall._  
  
She opened her eyes again to find the mango in her hand. The mare was looking down at her, slightly thinner than before. Lacci's eyes widened and she scurried backwards a few feet before standing up. The mare was not only thinner though, it was also fully visible. Lacci carefully reached out and petted her on the nose. The mare shook her head and seemed to smile a bit. It nudged Lacci's shoulder, and she handed the horse her bitten mango.  
  
Lacci tried to think of where to go now. Where was the bed? She needed to find the bed. She started walking, and stopped before her foot hit the ground. Was it safe? She reached down and touched the ground. Grass. Convinced, Lacci stepped out into the sea of grass, and away from the oasis that was the mango bush.   
  
Wait. Bush? Mangoes grew on trees!! Lacci turned back, but the bush and the mare were both gone. So much for that.  
  
_Lacci continued walking. The scene was actually fairly nice, if looking like a negative image. Lacci was growing tired. She really needed to find that bed. She turned around 360 degrees, scanning the whole horizon, and saw no bed. She noted the sky was becoming a lighter shade of black. She wondered whether morning or night was coming. Then she saw the billion black dots becoming visible in the sky. Those must be stars.   
  
Lacci turned around, to face where she was sure she had been heading before, and nearly tripped over the bed. Shocked and amazed, Lacci climbed onto the bed.   
  
She climbed onto the bed to find that it was now occupied. Lacci jumped back, afraid it was a nightmare. It wasn't, it was human. At least, it was shaped human and looked human. It sat up, and Lacci stared.   
  
"Well?" snapped the sleep deprived Mitsuji, who had been trying to get some sleep for a while. He had found this nice, comfy bed, fallen asleep in it, and then suddenly this person comes up and jumps on him. This.. extremely familiar person. "LACI!": he cried out in recognition. "What are you doing here? How did you get here?"  
  
Lacci just continued to stare at Mitsuji. How had **she** gotten there? how had **he** gotten there!! "I don't know!! I just kinda appeared here. On this bed. This is my bed, you know."  
  
Mitsuji looked around. "It's a dream world of some sort. I've run into several black horses... I thought you were dead..." he trailed off, not wanting to recall the memory of Lacci's death, which had involved a very large cheese grater and a drawer full of razor sharp silverware.  
  
"The horses.." Lacci said. "The horses, they are all female. And transparent. They eat mangoes that grow on bushes, and multicolored grass..." Lacci sounded crazy, even to herself. She made herself comfortable next to Mitsuji, but didn't take her eyes off him, for fear of him disappearing.   
  
Mitsuji reached into his jacket and grasped something Lacci couldn't see, and kept his hand in there. The other arm he put around Lacci's shoulder's, hugging her close to him. "Whatever you say, Laci. We need to find a way out of here. It'll be easier if we stay together."  
  
"I hadn't any intention of leaving you, Mitsuji," Lacci said, frightened at the very idea of being away from him. She felt safer being by him.  
  
Mitsuji's eyes widened at Lacci's words. "Mitsuji? I'm not Mitsuji!!" He exclaimed, removing his arm and pushing her away with it.   
  
Lacci looked confused, and smiled. "But... but yes you are!! Of course you are!! You are Mitsuji!" She reached out to take his hand.  
  
Not-Mitsuji pulled out what he had been hiding in his jacket. It was a screwdriver. He seemed to think it was a good weapon. "Get away from me! I know what you are now. You're part of another one of those dreams!! You've all got some little default! I've fallen into too many of those, you aren't getting me again this time! The real Laci is at home in bed, safe! She probably doesn't even know that I'm gone!! The children..."  
  
Lacci's jaw dropped. What was wrong with him? Children? Lacci suddenly realized what was so wrong about this picture. "You're saying my name wrong, Mitsuji. It's Lack-ey. Not lay-see." She wanted to touch him reassuringly somehow, but was afraid of the screwdriver. Mitsuji acted as though he might actually use it.  
  
"STOP CALLING ME THAT!!! My name is Mistuji!!! I live in Tampa bay with my wife and my 3 children!! I'm a computer engineer." The man was now beginning to look a little older than Mitsuji, but still looked exactly like him. Lacci was finally convinced.  
  
"You.. you aren't Mitsuji. You're a muggle, aren't you? Not a wizard or a demi-god or anything. Just a muggle, trapped in the dream world. I'm Lacci, and I'm a witch." Lacci looked disappointed.  
  
A muggle? Wizards? Gods? The word that had been bothering him most surfaced in his mind like a helium bubble under water. "YOU'RE A WITCH?!? GET AWAY FROM ME!!" He shrieked, and stabbed at her. He hit Lacci in the side, and she squealed in pain. She tried to jump off the bed, but she could hear pinchers below, so she turned back to face the muggle. "Look, I think.." she began, but the man lunged again, this time getting her hand, and pinning it to the bed. Mistuji fell over the edge of the bed and disappeared beneath the illusionary grass.  
  
Lacci looked at her hand. The screwdriver seemed to be infecting it, and her hand was stinging in pain. She couldn't get it out. The flesh around the wound began to grow green, and soon her whole arm felt like a large bruise. She brushed her fingers over it, and blood appeared on the tips of her fingers. There were teeny metal razors sticking out of her skin!!! Lacci tried harder to pull away.  
  
She managed to pull the screwdriver out of her hand and the bed, but the razors were still in her arm. The were barely noticeably, until you looked at your skin and saw the blood rising from it. Lacci had gotten several more scratches from her arm on her face. She reached up to feel the side of her face, and the skin on her cheek came off like the peel on a very rotten kiwi.She stared at ii in her hand. She rubbed her fingers together, and the skin rubbed away, like ash. Lacci got a mental image of her cheek, seeing all of the muscles and blood...  
  
The rest of Lacci's skin began to slip away from her flesh. Lacci tried not to move, but it fell away anyway. All of her nerves were super sensitive now; even the clothing she wore hurt. Her feet began screaming in pain as she tried to walk, her boots rubbing at her open nerves ends and her exposed muscle. She fell to the ground, becoming caked in dirt..._  
  
The image of Mitsuji, or Mistuji rather, attacking her was still stuck in Lacci's head when she woke up under the covers of her bed. She sat up and looked around. It was the slytherin dorm room!! Good. She was back. But there was something wrong. Lacci couldn't put her finger on it. So she decided to get up and explore.  
  
Lacci stepped out into the hall, and came face to face with Threndle. "Threnny!" She cried. "You'll never believe what happened to me!! There were mangoes, and nightmares, and Mitsuji told me he was a muggle with kids, and Lum is dead..." Lacci trailed off, noting Threndle's glare. "Are you ok, Threnny?"  
  
Threndle smiled. _"Of course Lum is dead. I killed her, remember? In the kitchen. Oh wait, you've been gone. And you shouldn't have come back. You were safe there. No one could hurt you there. But you cant live here, Lacci. There are those who dont want you here."_ Threndle began slowly advancing on Lacci.  
  
Lacci backed up a little. "Er, what? You know where I was? A...am I still there? It looks like it.." Lacci twitched and tried to open the door behind her, which was locked.   
  
Threndle pulled out her knife. _"No Lacci, you aren't in the dream world anymore. And yes I know about it, I put you there. To keep you out of trouble. But you've always got a way of messing things up. But I'll see that there's an end to that."_ Threndle now had Lacci backed up against the wall. Threndle was shorter than Lacci. Lacci was 16, Threndle was 14.  
  
Lacci shut her eyes for a moment. _let me wake up now, let me wake up now..._ She opened her mismatched eyes and stared down into Threndle's feirce purple eyes. Then she doubled over as the knife was thrust into her stomach.  
  
Threndle Grinned and she stabbed her ex friend in the stomach. She had warned Lacci about this. She grasped her double edged knife tighter and pulled it upwards, cutting Lacci open from her navel to her neck. Threndle lightly traced the old scar on lacci's neck, and then quickly slashed at it. With a final gasp, Lacci fell to the ground, all blood and guts. Threndle smiled down at her.  
  
_"Ooops. Did I do that?"_ She stepped into the shadows and disappeared.  



End file.
